Web is Flux

The amount of control that we as a community exercise on the web is unfortunate. The web is far more flexible and inclusive than we believe it to be. The objective of this talk is to appreciate the beauty of the web and understand why we should adopt (and encourage) practices that uphold the spirit of the web.

Transcript

1. Web is Flux
2. @souvikdg
4. Hi!
6. My rst exposure to HTML was as a 7th grader.
7. IE5, Netscape
8. <marquee>, <blink>
9. Tim Berners-Lee, 1989
10. ~25 years
11. Have you ever wondered how has it managed to survive so long, and also improve over time?
12. Principles
13. Principle of Least Power
14. Tim Bernes-Lee Computer Science spent the last forty years making languages which were as powerful as possible. Nowadays we have to appreciate the reasons for picking not the most powerful solution but the least powerful. e less powerful the language, the more you can do with the data stored in that language.
15. HTML is forwards compatible. It has healthy fallbacks for things it doesn’t know yet.
16. As a result of many such excellent design principles…
17. 824* di erent ways to connect to the web
18. 7,063* kinds of web browsers access the web
19. 432,102* kinds of devices access the web
20. 1,180* di erently sized screens access the web
21. *cooked up facts
22. However, the point still stands.
23. Web is everywhere, and in many ways we’re dependent on it.
25. e clients are fragmented — a side e ect of ubiquity
26. How did we deal with this?
27. For a long time by Graceful Degradation
28. is site is best viewed on IE6 at 800×600.
29. Today?
30. BrowserStack claims to have 300+ browser versions.
31. In 2011 there were 20+ mobile browsers. http://www.quirksmode.org/presentations/USTourApril11/albany.pdf
32. How long can we continue doing things that way?
33. Looks are deceiving.
34. Because the web is tolerant, you can make any code “look” good on your preferred web browser.
35. Are we catering to just web browsers?
36. A whole bunch of services consume our websites — read-it-later, accessibility tools, search bots…
37. http://futurefriendlyweb.com Disruption will only accelerate. e quantity and diversity of connected devices—many of which we haven't imagined yet—will explode, as will the quantity and diversity of the people around the world who use them.
38. Fads will die, and new ones will be born.
39. :/ SEO
40. :/ Mobile is in
41. “Inclusive Web Design For the Future” Steve Champeon and Nick Finck, 2003
42. Progressive Enhancement
43. Content
44. Content HTML
45. Content HTML CSS
46. Content HTML CSS JS
47. People who are on basic browsers get a base experience, those on newer browsers get an enhanced experience.
48. No one’s excluded.
49. Christian Heilmann I am always amazed about the lack of support for progressive enhancement on the web. Whenever you mention it, you face a lot of “yeah, but…” and you feel having to defend something that should be ingrained in the DNA of anyone who works on the web.
50. :/ We know our customers.
51. :/ No one uses that browser.
52. :/ We build enterprise apps.
53. :/ But that’s too much work.
54. :/ Move fast, break things.
55. :/ We make “web apps”
56. :/ Who has Javascript disabled anyways?
57. :/ Relying on Javascript is not a problem for us. Today no one can complete an online transaction without Javascript anyways.” “
58. Dependence on Javascript is a mistake.
59. “Shoot this idiot down!”
60. Javascript can make your application a super-hero…
61. …but even Superman has legs http://www. ickr.com/photos/hajagosb/6264235487/
62. @andyhume Progressive enhancement is more about dealing with technology failing than technology not being supported. And you can quote me on that.
63. @GnrlMxms Most bugs I deal with on a daily basis are caused by some JavaScript library or the other randomly breaking :/
64. http://www. ickr.com/photos/vpickering/8777968566/
65. Q: Are we not encouraging people to continue using old browsers by supporting absence of Javascript?
66. People don’t use old browsers out of choice, and it is far more important for a website to ful l its purpose/promise.
67. In July 2013, there was a lot of discussion on the web about the relevance of progressive enhancement.
68. Some people have inaccurate notions.
69. Progressive enhancement is not about making websites for the most basic systems. It’s about starting with the most basic systems in mind.
70. So no one’s asking you to not use Javascript.
71. Brad Frost ere is a di erence between support and optimization.
72. :/ Our product should look the same everywhere.
73. It’s okay if a website looks di erent on di erent browsers.
74. We write code that run on client systems.
75. We shouldn’t ignore the known unknowns.
76. If we start listing the known unknowns, we’ll almost immediately start feeling helpless about the situation.
77. e thought of not being in control is scary.
78. How can you control something that is changing all the time?
79. Don’t control it, embrace it.
80. John Allsopp A Dao of Web Design e control which designers know in the print medium, and o en desire in the web medium, is simply a function of the limitation of the printed page. We should embrace the fact that the web doesn’t have the same constraints, and design for this exibility.
81. Je Bezos Find the things that won’t change in your business and invest heavily in those things.
82. Focus on functionality and content out design.
83. Uphold the core principles of web.
84. @lukew Perhaps ironically the more backwards compatible your web site is, the more future friendly it is.
85. Don’t be fad-friendly. Be web-friendly.
86. e web is an amazing platform.
87. “ e Power of Simplicity” Jeremy Keith border:none 2013
88. http://www. ickr.com/photos/theenmoy/9356165709/
89. e web is an amazing platform.
90. e web is an amazing stack.
91. e web is an amazing medium.
92. e state of web keeps going through continuous change.
93. Web is Flux
94. Web is Flux